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A couple of years ago, college applicants in the US and abroad, were the first to face the Coalition Application. This new competitor to the Common App offered a fresh take on the college application process. Students as early as 9th grade were given a “locker” and were able to use the platform to start building their college application portfolio. Participating schools include the University of Chicago, the Ivy League, and many other elite universities. Mercifully their essay prompts are similar to the Common App, and they are the same prompts they used for 2017-2018. The following five posts include a close reading of each prompt, and some ideas to get you thinking about the essay this year.

I believe that all college essays include two elements: story and argument. You’re creating a brief narrative you’ve mined from your experience, and you’re making a case that you are fit for the schools you’re applying to. Nevertheless, breaking down and thinking about these each of these prompts early will bring some of these ideas to the fore. Here ya go, with prompt #1!

Prompt #1: Tell a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.

I love this prompt for its elegance and simplicity. The components are the story and what the story demonstrates. If you don’t feel you can spin a great yarn, I think it’s best to begin by mining your memory, and to quickly and thoughtfully write down everything you remember. This is the “raw material” that you may choose to shape later.

Here’s an example of some “raw material” from my life that could be shaped into a little narrative that describes either character or how character was formed.

My friends and I would play in the neighborhood, and talk about the weird lady. She lived in a house down the hill and at the beginning of the next uphill, and we didn’t know her or anything about her. We weren’t even sure she was a lady. We thought everything about the house was strange. There were succulents and rocks in the front yard, and we’d note that there were little figurines in the window above her front door. We’d walk down the hill, and then run up the hill for fear that we’d be seen by the weird lady. The car that would sometimes be in front of the weird lady’s house was old, and bluish, and beat up, and covered in what we thought were menacing-looking bumper stickers. We saw or imagined strange things inside the windows. One day my friend and I decided to knock on the weird lady’s door. We stepped up sheepishly, no purpose in mind, and knocked. We waited. Then we heard footsteps. My friend ran away, but I felt compelled to stay. The door opened and I stood there akimbo, trying to seem confident, and told her I was her neighbor…

The next challenge is to say what this story (A) says about the my character or (B) how it shaped the my character. In this example, (B) is probably stronger. What happened when I faced the subject of my prejudice? Maybe there’s kind of a Scout Finch-Boo Radley dynamic to explore.

Another way to approach this essay is to begin with your values. What are two or three qualities that go into an amazing human being? Do you have a specific example of how these qualities demonstrated or formed? The story should help you describe 3-5 values that you have developed that you will then share with the college you choose.

Admissions officers do not want an “embellished résumé.” They can get what you do and how well you do it from other parts of your essay. They want to know the motivation. The values that guide you. The French call this the raison d’être, or reason for being. It’s a popular cliché these days to say that we are “human beings” not “human doings.” Your college essays are an opportunity for showing of your raison d’être, not the what. This is why we begin college essays with a time of reflection. Instead of trying to explain how great you are at the trombone, the question should be why the trombone? Why not the clarinet? The trombone is an assertive instrument. It makes its present known. Maybe the trombone is your chance to be heard clearly.

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.

Sam’s white star illuminates the world around him. We all have something that brightens from without and within, when the world around us is like Mordor. Love. God. Beauty. Joy. Whatever. We all have one.

Our values are what put us in contact with our white star as often as possible. We all want to be in touch with “light and high beauty,” and we are all on a journey. As you think about your personal statement, also think about your white star. What makes you feel peace, hope, and meaning? What principles or codes put you in touch with your white star as often as possible?

Your values are the principles that help guide your behavior, what you choose to do. Samwise Gamgee’s values, for example, were friendship, loyalty, and determination. They were strong enough to keep him faithful to Frodo, even to the fires of Mount Doom. And they made for an incredible part of one the most epic stories. If Sam were to write a personal statement, he would benefit by thinking of his values, his code, and how the moments in his life were shaped by his values, and how his values shaped the moments of his life.

Our values guide our actions, and our actions are guided by our values. Get in touch with your white star and how it defines your values. This is a great place to start any narrative about your life. It’s so much more important than your online profile, which is only a dim and polished reflection of your white star and your values. Your values will last much longer than the trends and fads of the day.

Activity:

What is your “white star”? Describe it in a few sentences.

What keeps you in touch with your white star? Describe your behaviors.

At the beginning of the school year, I have my seniors do a values exercise. This is designed to have them think about what gets them up, gets them moving, what they’d fight for, what illuminates their world. I have them go to a list like this one, and choose five. Then from that list of five I have them choose three. From that three, one.

Try it: from a list of 50 choose five, then three, then one. Don’t worry if it doesn’t feel like your forever-and-always-number-one value. Just choose one that feels like you right now.

Then, value in mind, start thinking of moments in your life related to a challenge you faced, a difficulty, a heartache. They don’t have to be the life altering, earth-shaking moments. Maybe it was how you decided to spend a day off. Perhaps it’s reflected in your hobby or the kinds of people you get along with. The goal of this exercise is to connect your values to your challenges, and how you’ve responded to your difficulties.

I know one of my values is balance. This was reflected in my choice to surf, and specifically to surf longboards instead of shortboards. Both require balance, but I like the game of balance offered by the longboard more. The question I would then ask is, why? Why did I value balance? What needs were being fulfilled by balance? And most importantly, what powers was I developing through balance and practicing balance? These powers were probably related to the other three or five values I would choose. Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are generally generated by our network of values.

Chances are these preferences and little choices get at the essence of what you’re about. Try writing a story based on this value and decide if this could be the basis for your personal statement. See if you can connect your values to the way you’ve met your challenges. Chances are your thoughts, feelings, actions, and desires are related to your values, too.

This is a great way to see how the things we do are influenced by what we value, and how the things we value are interconnected. I know I surfed because I had difficulty focusing in school, and that the desire for balance was related to my value of spirituality, and that surfing was a means of connecting to something bigger than myself. When I begin to see this web, a personal statement begins to emerge, that fits somewhere on this spectrum:

Values–>Difficulty–>Actions–>Values

Our challenges make us aware of our needs, and we get our needs fulfilled in ways that correspond with our values. Consider the how the classes you take, your extracurriculars or your hobbies correspond with your values. This web could be the theme of your essay, or the soul of your essay.

Your path to college begins in like grade two, when you learn the types of things that pique your curiosity, and the things that you just kind of need to get through. It may begin earlier. Things start to get critical your junior year of high school. This is when you start actively preparing for college. While you probably don’t need to begin writing your college essays until the summer, you can do the following to optimize your junior year:

Fall:

Do your best in difficult classes.

Pay attention to the questions that most inspire your interest. Maybe they’re questions of energy efficiency in physics class. Perhaps they have to do with solving world hunger or providing clean water or fair trade. Perhaps they have to do with narrative structure and character motivation. Don’t think about what you should be interested in; pay attention, instead, to what really interests, confuses, or moves you. This is gathering material for your essays and interviews.

What do you want to do? is a too begin a question yet. Just ask “what do I like to do?” and “what do I think about?”

Winter:

Prep for the SAT and/or ACT. Maybe take a prep class. Take several practice exams. Write several practice essays.

Prep for your AP test(s)

Research and apply for cool summer programs or jobs — do stuff that aligns with your values and dreams. Your summers in high school are precious times. I’m all about balance, and believe you should really enjoy this time, while making it purposeful and missional. If you’re interested in publication or journalism – or think you could be – an internship at a magazine or online publication might be a good use of time. This is still fully exploration time. You may think you want to be a doctor. My wife thought she wanted to be a doctor and spent a summer as a candy striper. She found that she couldn’t take blood. She decided to be a teacher, where she manages a lot of germs, but little blood.

Spring:

Take SAT and/or ACT for the first time

Do well on your AP test(s)

Finalize cool summer program or job

Research schools and start developing your list of prospective schools

This is time for the “dirty dozen.” Start with twelve schools. This is a manageable number to consider. 20 is too many. Three may be too few. You can give a dozen a good shake, and this is a good way to keep yourself from being too limited.

Begin brainstorming for your personal statement. Give yourself some time to think about what you do, what you feel, and what you value. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to get in touch with your values.

Summer:

Visit 2-3 colleges

Do things you love to do, but also think about why you do them.

Attend summer program or work summer job

Begin your personal statement. This is the golden time. You don’t have other assignments, so make this your primary assignment. Spend a few minutes each day with brainstorming and drafting. You may want to write three drafts and take a poll from family and friends to choose which one “pops.”

They make businesses and industries. They form alliances and relationships. They inspire wars and help people get out of war. Effort would be futile without words to instruct and to guide and to orient. Every word has a whole range of meanings and associations.

There was this philosopher and Franciscan Friar–a smart, holy guy–named Roger Bacon. He held that there were three substances capable of magic: the herbal, the mineral, and the verbal. The verbal is the only one that purely human. Our words are our magic.

They can also get you into college.

I like to help students discover their own stories, and to activate the magic of the verbal in their lives. I love to help students discover (not write–discover) their personal statement, because yes, it helps them get in to college. But it also helps them define their values, own their history, and find their white star–that thing that is more than a goal, it’s one’s bliss.